Performance of thiophilic adsorption chromatography in the purification of rat IgG2b monoclonal antibodies from serum- and protein-free culture supernatants

The usefulness of thiophilic adsorption chromatography for the purification of rat IgG2b monoclonal antibodies has been evaluated. This approach has not shown specificity for immunoglobulins; therefore, to minimize potential interferences, the purification was carried out from supernatants of hybridomas grown in serum- and protein-free conditions. The protein purity of the six final antibody preparations assayed was always greater than or equal to 97%. In addition to the easiness of this procedure, which enables one-step antibody purification, the materials employed are rather inexpensive and milligram amounts of antibody can be recovered from 1 L of supernatant. Overall, the purification of rat IgG2b monoclonals under the conditions reported here offers an advantageous alternative to other more expensive and cumbersome methods. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.